


Before We Save the World

by clockworkouroboros



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-02-10 11:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18659302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkouroboros/pseuds/clockworkouroboros
Summary: Eris has been on the planet Ysalus for a week. He’s given Knyla the instructions to try and save her world, now the only reason he’s hanging around is because he can’t get Knyla out of his head. So when she suggests they travel around the universe for a little bit before she gets to work on saving her planet, he jumps at the opportunity. Featuring touch-starved Time Lords.





	1. Chapter 1

It was a week before Knyla decided to trust him. An agonizingly slow week. Eris was doing his best, trying to get him to trust her. She’d sounded so…  _ nice  _ when he’d talked to her on Gallifrey. But now, five years earlier, she was in a perpetually bad mood, her outlook on life totally hopeless.

But she walked into his TARDIS a week after he’d first arrived (he had, perhaps foolishly, given her a key two days into his stay, but he hadn’t seen her since then), and slammed a gun onto the console.

“Don’t do that!” he immediately cried, rushing to make sure that nothing bad had happened. “You could accidentally destroy the planet if you press the wrong button.”

Knyla raised her eyebrows, and Eris tried hard not to think about how pretty her eyes were. There had been  _ some _ flirting back on Gallifrey, but now he was on a mission. Besides, she’d been in a pretty terrible mood the entire time he’d known her in person. So he really didn’t think there was a chance with her. Not yet, at least.

“Was that a threat?” she asked him. Her voice sounded slightly dangerous.

Eris smiled, both confused and distracted. “No, I just don’t want your planet to be destroyed. Seeing as how it’s the planet I’m trying to save.”

“Yeah. Five years from now.” Knyla rolled her eyes.

“If I could save you now, I would,” Eris said, crossing his arms. “I  _ want _ to save you now. But the timelines—”

“Yeah, I have to be here five years from now so I can contact you,” Knyla interrupted. “You said already.” She leaned against the console, and Eris desperately hoped that she wasn’t pushing any important buttons. “What if,” she said slowly, “and I’m just theorizing here, but what if you took me with you in this spaceship—”

“Also a time machine,” Eris muttered. “You always forget that bit.”

“—In your spaceship,” she continued, unperturbed, “and then bring me back five years later. Since you said that it’s a time machine—”

“Time _ ship _ ,” Eris interrupted.

She fixed him with a  _ look _ , one that made Eris wonder if she was going to try and kill him with that rather large gun she’d brought in. He decided it would be a smart idea to shut up.

“Time _ ship _ , then. Whatever.” She dropped the gun on the floor with a thud, making Eris flinch. She grinned slightly. “Anyway. If this is a time machine, you can take me away, and bring me back just before five years later! Then your stupid timeline will be safe.”

“That  _ won’t _ work,” Eris said apologetically. “You’re going to be busy for the whole five years hunting down everyone who will leave.”

“What, and you’re going to—to just flip off back to  _ Gallifrey _ and—” She paused. “Why can’t I say flip? Not flip, I mean  _ flip _ . No—” She gave up.

Eris couldn’t decide if he was annoyed or amused. If the TARDIS swear filter was on (and it had to be, or else he was sure she would have said something much different), that meant that he didn’t have full control of the TARDIS. It was a bit like putting training wheels on a bicycle. And that was annoying, because he was a damn good pilot. Deputy Coordinator Narvin probably just didn’t trust a newbie with the full powers of a TARDIS, probably.

Knyla had fallen silent now, and that was worrying. He looked at her, being extremely careful only to look at her face,  _ not _ anywhere else, and oh, he was probably staring now, was that bad? He wasn’t  _ trying _ to stare, but it was very difficult because he wasn’t sure where else he should look.

“...Do you need something?” Knyla asked. “You’re starting to freak me out. Do Time Lords not have to blink as much as us mere mortals?” Her voice sounded annoyed. Maybe a bit sarcastic.

“Oh. Sorry.” Eris really needed to get better at handling sarcasm. He certainly got enough of it from his bosses. He shifted his gaze to the back of his hand, pointedly not looking anywhere else. He would stare at the back of his hand until he had every single little line memorized, every…

“That’s just as weird. You alright, Eris?”

“Hmm?” Eris asked, still looking at his hand. He involuntarily glanced up at Knyla. “Oh. Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”

“So do you always travel through time trying to save people, or is this just because of your horrible war?” Knyla asked. It sounded like she was trying to change the subject.

“We—that is, the Celestial Intervention Agency—intervene to keep people from meddling with Time and trying to change it. We save history, and all of that.” Eris was grateful to her for giving him something new to talk about.

“And this  _ Rassilon _ is trying to change history for no reason, so you’re going behind his back to keep history right.”

“We’ve been over this already.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not giving me too much to go off of.” Knyla threw her hands up in the air. She had picked up the absurdly large gun at some point when he was trying not to look at her. “What if I want to get to know  _ you _ better?”

Eris looked up, startled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She sighed. “Never mind. Look, I’ve got an idea.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” Knyla protested. “You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“It’s going to involve my TARDIS, though,” Eris said. “Well? Am I wrong?”

Knyla rolled her eyes, a smile playing at her lips. Eris tried very hard to not be distracted by how her entire face transformed when she smiled, going from pretty to radiant. It was very difficult. “It  _ was _ ,” she admitted. “But I promise I’m not trying to get out of staying on the planet for five years. I guess.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Take me into space with you!” Knyla exclaimed. She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet like a little girl. “It’s a time machine—”

“Timeship,” muttered Eris.

“—So you can take me anywhere and then bring me back right after we left!”

Eris wanted to. He really wanted to. To swan off into the universe with a pretty girl, showing off its greatest wonders? He wished he could.

“I’m sorry, but—”

She sidled up to him, the insanely large gun still in one hand. “Shh.” She pressed a finger to his lips, and he choked on his words in a most unflattering way.

“I suppose we could do  _ one _ trip,” he said slowly, already regretting his words. He had a mission! He should have gone back as soon as he could! And yet here he was, having already spent a week on Ysalus, on this doomed planet. He really was a sucker for Knyla. He couldn’t figure out why.

Knyla’s face blossomed into a smile, and Eris could feel all of his misgivings vanish just at seeing her happy. What was wrong with him? He was a CIA agent. To hear Deputy Coordinator Narvin talk, that meant having no emotions: just being cold, clean, and efficient.

Of course, Deputy Coordinator Narvin was one of the most emotion-driven people Eris had ever met, so he took that with a grain of salt.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked her, smiling back.

She shrugged, and ran a hand through her curly hair. “I dunno.  _ You’re _ the one with the spaceship. Where’s a nice place to visit?”

Oh. “Listen,” said Eris quickly. “I’m a Time Lord. I don’t leave my planet very much. I’ve only left Gallifrey maybe half a dozen times. And anyway, all of those planets were rubbish.”

“Like this one?” Knyla added, the smile fading from her face. “You know what, it was a stupid idea. Forget it.”

Eris reached out quickly, grabbed her arm. “No, let’s—okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll turn the randomiser on. It’ll take us somewhere, anywhere, and we’ll just keep hopping around until we find a nice planet.”

Knyla raised her eyebrows at him. “Any place in the universe?”

He nodded. “And any time. The TARDIS automatically translates all languages and can generate its own money,” he added, almost desperately.

“You know what?” Knyla asked. “I think that sounds nice. But before we go—”

“What?”

She paused, studying his face. He tried to not show how embarrassed he was by her scrutiny. “Never mind,” she finally said. “Let’s go have some fun, and then we can save Ysalus. Sound good?”

Eris grinned. “Sounds alright to me!” He inwardly cursed at himself for sounding  _ too _ eager about going off with her. He was a Time Lord, an agent in the CIA, he wasn’t supposed to get attached to the people he worked with. But he couldn’t deny the fact that when she touched him, it made him feel different. Better. Safer. All he wanted was to hug her tight, but he couldn’t figure out a way to do that without being awkward.

He pushed some buttons and flipped a few switches, and soon they were spinning through the vortex, traveling against the fabric of reality. Sometimes Eris wondered how the Time Lords ever gained the technology for time travel, how many people died before they figured out a way to safely do it. The records from the old times were scant, and Eris was inquisitive.

As the TARDIS materialized, he chanced a glance at Knyla. To his surprise, she was looking at him. Not in an annoyed way, or a surprised way, or anything like that. She was looking at him like she actually enjoyed being around him. That was new. Eris thought he annoyed most people. As their eyes met, she looked away, blushing furious red.

“Well,” said Eris, trying to make it a little less awkward. “We’ve landed.”

She looked back up at him, still red. “What’s outside?”

“No idea,” he admitted. “But the controls are reading that it’s safe to go outside. Want to see?”

“Are you insane?” Knyla asked. “Of course I do! Come on, let’s go.” She grabbed his hand— _ she grabbed his hand _ —and pulled him to the doors. Fireworks went off in Eris’s stomach, and he laced his fingers through hers.


	2. Chapter 2

The planet was rubbish. Of course it would be. If you’re a citizen of Ysalus, apparently you aren’t allowed to see anything beautiful. The controls on the spaceship had said that it was safe outside. Technically, that was true. The air was breathable, even if it smelled like rotten eggs. The ground wasn’t lava. Just gross. It would have been bearable, Knyla supposed, except for the acid rain.

Eris pulled her back into the TARDIS before it could start melting her skin off, or something. Knyla tripped as he did so, falling against him.

For a brief moment, Knyla didn’t move. She could feel his two hearts beating underneath that ridiculous black-and-white, mud-spattered robe. She could feel his breathing hitch as she fell against him, and then resume normally. And then she realized that it probably would get awkward if she continued to lean on him. She pushed herself off of his chest, and suddenly he was helping her steady herself and stand up.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Knyla said. Her voice sounded angry and sarcastic. She wasn’t trying to sound like that.

“Of course you are,” Eris replied. Knyla didn’t dare look up at him—she was sure he could tell how much she’d enjoyed resting on his chest, and that he was making fun of her. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you in the past week, it’s that you don’t need help from anyone.”

Knyla walked over towards her gun. “Then why are you sticking around?” she asked, still not letting herself look at him.

“I dunno,” Eris admitted. “I guess when I was talking to you in the future-”

She spun around. “What about me in the future?”

Eris shut his mouth, then opened it, then shut it again. Knyla was furious to realize that she found it adorable. “Never mind,” he finally said. “Forget it. I can’t tell you the future, that’s strictly against the rules.”

“You already have,” Knyla pointed out. “A little more rule-breaking can’t hurt.”

He laughed, nervously. “I’m already breaking more rules than my bosses think. We shouldn’t have ever left Ysalus, technically.”

“Yeah, I know,” Knyla replied. “I get the feeling you’ll point it out every chance you get.”

He shrugged, a half-smile playing on his lips. “Only if you keep asking me to break more rules,” he said.

Oh. So he was teasing her. Normally, Knyla hated teasing. But coming from Eris, it wasn’t so bad.

She forcefully reminded herself that he was there on a mission. He wasn’t really there for  _ her _ . Well, he sort of was. But it wasn’t because he was interested in her. He was only interested in her as far as the good of his planet went.

She wished he wasn’t so utterly adorable. He looked like he was about her age, he was tall, he was strong, he was nice. His face was pleasant to look at. Actually, it was more than just pleasant to look at. He was definitely a step up from anyone on Ysalus. Everyone there was the product of generations of war. For Eris, his war was just beginning. His planet wasn’t at the starving-to-the-point-of-stunted-growth, not quite yet.

“How big is this place?” Knyla asked him suddenly. She was trying to change the subject. She didn’t know how to respond to teasing.

Eris shrugged. “Technically, it’s infinite,” he replied. “But I’ve only gone down the hall a bit. The TARDIS generated a bedroom for me.”

“We should explore,” Knyla suggested. “It would be a lot better than going out onto that planet. Besides,” she added, “who knows what your spaceship will conjure up?”

He winced at that. Knyla decided she liked annoying him. “It’s a TARDIS,” he said, his voice pained. “And it doesn’t conjure stuff up, it generates it. It’s dimensionally transcendental.”

“I understood some of those words individually,” Knyla replied. She couldn’t stop the smile that was quirking the corners of her mouth.

Eris looked at her—she tried not to feel embarrassed—and his face relaxed into a slightly bewildered smile, like he couldn’t quite figure her out. “Alright,” he said. “Why not?”


End file.
